1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.1 An Icy Welcome
1.2.1.25 Mic drop
She felt like an enormous weight had been removed from her shoulders. A smile lit her lips, and it didn’t feel forced or brittle. Bulgaria and Wellington had arrived. Tomsk was talking to Tenente Fandorin. Alderney was tearing a strip off Mary-Lynn, Kino, Hachiko and Omobono, pointing at the crater and shaking her tiny fist at them. The effect ought to have been comical, but they were hanging their heads in shame.
She went over to them.
Kafana: “Ease off, Alderney. No harm done, except to the thief and this poor abused Plaza. But I do have an announcement to make.” She looked at the streamers, to make sure she had their attention.
Kafana: “Earlier today, Cruel Vengeance did something cruel to me, unprovoked. They offered to make me a genuine aeroplane-owning continent-striding arlife billionaire.”
She paused while everyone did a double take, before explaining.
Kafana: “Offers like that come with a price tag attached. In this case, the price was too high. I knew that straight away, but it’s taken me an hour to work out how to phrase my rejection of their offer, because I have my restaurants and protégés to think of, and I didn’t want them left feeling that I’d rejected it casually without considering things carefully.”
Kafana: “So, to Cruel Vengeance, let me now make my response plain. No. Not if you offered me all the kingdoms on Earth would I pay such a price. And to anyone else thinking of demanding similar terms, let me give a word of advice. If I even think you are making a threat, against me or mine, I will not just destroy you like I destroyed The Immortals. I will leave your every work and member a smoking ruin compared to which this crater will seem but a small pothole.”
Hachiko was the one who summoned up the courage to ask the question they all had: “Kafana, what price did they demand of you?”
“Oh. That?” She shrugged. “They asked me to betray my fellow Wombles.”
She put an arm around Alderney’s shoulders, Tomsk put an arm around hers. Wellington and Bulgaria joined in and the five of them walked off together, without saying another word.
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Nevile's Court, Trinity, Cambridge
Mycroft took time to re-read his post, secure in the knowledge that his privacy was guarded by the same men in bowler hats who defended the neatly trimmed lawn in the courtyard below from drunken students. He’d moved to Cambridge University after starting off at UCL, when Trinity College had offered him a fellowship, but he’s stayed in touch with his previous colleagues. It was one of those, Dr. Sharpe, who’d invited him to The Burrow, and he was taking a certain satisfaction at trying his hand at something new.
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Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Burrow Forum: Workshop
Subject: Attunements
From: 221bBakerStreet
A preliminary analysis.
For a solo player casting magic using two elements, the game appears to add the sum of the player's attunement in those elements, to the product of how those elements rank in that particular world (from the weakest, Bel at rank 1, through Krev, Dro, Rac, Zer, Lun and Mor, to strongest, Cov at rank 8).
So, for example, mind magic uses Lun (ranked 6th) and Cov (ranked 8th), for a product of 48 (6 x 8). A player with a Lun attunement of 75 and a Cov attunement of 85 would have a sum of 160. 48 + 160 = 208.
Anything above 200 works, but the higher the number, the greater the potential to reach higher stages in that skill. Journeymen tend to have at least 220, Masters 240, High Masters 280, and so on.
However, there are a number of modifiers that affect this.
Terrain:
These vary from -10 to +10, but differ by element pairing:
Zer & Rac : vary with time of day
Bel & Cov : vary with how wild or tamed the land is
Krev & Mor : vary with how moist or arid it is
Lun & Dro : vary with the fertility of the land
Astronomical:
There's a monthly influence that affects a specific elemental combination, that's strongest in the middle week of the month. And possibly another effect that depends upon the day of the week, though it is too small to be sure on the current data.
Region:
In addition to the above, there appears to also be a regional effect, but whether this is based on location, political affiliation, patriotism or something else is unclear. It varies from city to city and seems weaker near the borders. Best guess so far is:
The Burgundish region has -15 Bel, -10 Krev, -5 Dro, +5 Lun, +10 Mor, +15 Cov
The Etruscan region has -15 Lun, -10 Rac, -5 Bel, +5 Cov, +10 Zer, +15 Dro
(I've rounded to the nearest 5.)
In short, we need much much more data, if we want to pin this down. I've updated the coding to include some more factors, such as whether it was raining at the time. For more details, see the service linked to the updated spreadsheet.
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Kafana certainly seemed to have lucked out. He did a quick calculation. Reinforcement magic was Cov-Mor, so that was 56 to start with. Then Torello was by the sea, which was damp, and a city, which was pretty organised. Call that another +10? And of course Torello was in the Etruscan region, so that was another +5 to Cov. The month was KrevinBelember, which didn’t help or harm, but the day of the week was Covday, so that was another boost.
And then of course you had to add on her personal attunement, as modified by any items or blessings she was under. It wasn’t public knowledge, but guesses in the forum suggested somewhere between 250 and 280. That would give…
His thoughts trailed off, looking again at the image of the crater blasted in the Plaza of the Public.
Well, well, well.